


Reds And Greens

by Andian



Category: Papers Please (Video Game)
Genre: Developing Friendships, Gen, Missing Scenes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:41:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26196565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Andian/pseuds/Andian
Summary: It's a cold morning when the Inspector first meets Sergiu Volda.
Relationships: Inspector & Sergiu Volda
Comments: 2
Kudos: 33
Collections: Press Start VI





	Reds And Greens

**Author's Note:**

  * For [plumedy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/plumedy/gifts).



It’s a cold morning. They are all cold but this one feels worse somehow, the frost seeping into his bones on the way to the checkpoint. The Inspector puts his hands into his coat pockets and tries not to think about the evening. His wife will ask about heating. “He is freezing,” she’ll say, looking at their son, little body shaking in the cold, and maybe there will be enough money. Maybe there won’t.

He doesn’t know yet and there is no money to be made worrying about it, otherwise he’d be a rich man by now. So he sits down as usual and gets ready to look over the small stack of papers on his desk, hoping they haven’t decided over night to only let in people whose name start with a C or something equally insane.

A man enters the building as he reaches for the first paper and he feels himself tense before he notices the guard uniform.

“Hello,” the guard says. He is standing straight, tone friendly but his expression blank. Ready to salute any moment, the Inspector thinks, like a good soldier. “I heard that you are from Nirsk? I grew up back there but I have not been back in many years.”

He does not expand on why and the Inspector doesn’t ask. Doesn’t need to really, not with the way the man is holding his gun, familiarity born out of necessity. He is young for somebody who has fought in the war but then aren’t they all, the Inspector thinks.

“It’s still a shithole,” he answers because if this man grew up in Nirsk, saying anything else would be immediately obvious as a lie. The man laughs at that, blank mask breaking up and revealing the person underneath. The Inspector is almost startled at the genuine amusement in his voice.

“Of course, this is what I remember too.” He smiles at the Inspector who doesn’t smile back. The man’s smile doesn’t falter. “I am Sergiu Volda. It is good to meet you.”

And then with another nod and a smile he turns towards the door. “I will do my best to keep you save,” he says before he leaves. The Inspector stares after him for a long moment, wondering if the man was aware that you couldn’t really keep this type of promise. Not here.

He tries not to think about it any further as he reaches for the loudspeaker button. It won’t put any food on his table. The day is spent stamping documents, more red than green today, and staring at small letters until his vision starts swimming. The guard from the morning, Sergiu it had been, hadn’t it, nods as he leaves and he nods back but doesn’t slow down.

Back at home his wife and her mother are talking about their day as he mechanically eats the food she puts in front of him. Some vodka with his uncle afterwards and he is too tired to do much else. He has promised his son he’d tell him a story. He can’t think of any stories but the ones he hears every day and those always end in red. His son would not want to hear those stories.

He goes to bed and falls asleep immediately, dreams mercifully devoid of any color. The next day is as cold as the one before or maybe even worse. The guards in front of the checkpoint stand straight as if frozen, their cheeks red in the cold winter air. Sergiu is among them, looking as if he is trying very hard to keep his teeth form chattering. At least he gets to sit inside, the Inspector thinks as he passes them by.

There is a letter waiting for him on his desk and if he didn’t know that the walls had eyes and the ceilings ears, he’d have groaned loudly. Instead he sits and reads. Unfavorable international press, it says. Give reasons for a denied entry.

He vaguely remembers somebody from yesterday, a passport and a press ID, nothing else. He had rejected them without a second thought. Staring at the letter, he wonders if he had made a wrong decision.

He pushes away the doubt because he cannot afford it and he has gotten quite good at compartmentalization since he had started working here. Had it really only been a few weeks? It feels like years had passed at this point.

“Next,” he bellows over the loudspeaker and he thinks he might hear his own distorted voice in hell. He asks questions, he stamps, he tells people why they aren’t allowed to enter. Some take it well. Others don’t. He ignores the insults as he does the pleading.

He is in the middle of another red stamp when the alarm starts ringing. For a moment he freezes, stamp hovering over the passport. Then the bars in front of his booth come down with a loud bang and the noise jolts him into action.

The key is to his right, always is since he had gotten it, and he opens the drawer and has the gun out in seconds. Aims then, at the person who has finished climbing the wall and is running towards the checkpoint and the guards, their bullets missing him by a mile.

Amateurs, the Inspector thinks and then he shoots. It hits the person and with the thick winter coat and from the distance he can’t even tell if it’s a man or a woman. It doesn’t matter. He slowly lowers the gun and thinks with annoyance about the fact that they will close the checkpoint for the day.

On his way back he passes the guards, still disorganized and panicked, and without really knowing why, his steps slow down. One of them had gone down, hadn’t he, he thinks. He doesn’t even know what he is looking for until he catches sight of Sergiu, looking slightly pale but unharmed.

He does not stop to talk but he feels a bit better on his way home, not even sure why exactly. At home his wife reminds him about his son’s birthday. “Crayons,” she says, before he even has to ask. “They are quite expensive though,” she then adds, sounding apologetic.

He ponders. From the kitchen it smells like potatoes again. No meat, likely. It’s cold and it will only get colder. His uncle is coughing and his mother-in-law seems to get thinner by the day as they all pretend to not see how she is pushing what little food she has on her plate towards her grandson, acting as if she isn’t all that hungry anyway.

But then he thinks of greens and reds and how nice it would be to see some other colors. He tries not to think about how you can’t eat colors as he hands over the money.

The next day at the guard post Sergiu is already waiting for him. “Thank you for yesterday,” he says and once again he sounds so earnest, so genuine. So unlike a soldier. “My aim is not like before,” he adds with a rueful smile and the Inspector wonders if he got hurt in the war. Many did, some of them in ways you couldn’t see.

Does he dream of bullets, the Inspector wonders, the way he dreams of colors? He just nods instead of asking and Sergiu leave for his post and that is that.

They celebrate his son’s birthday that evening and his son’s exclaim of happiness at his gift and wide smile are enough to make him forgot his worries for a moment. There is a piece of paper in his coat pocket when he leaves for work the next day and he purposefully does not look at it until he sits in his booth. Hero, his son’s scrawled writing reads. Papa, with sword and gun, protecting Arstotzka from her enemies. The Inspector stares at the drawing and wonders who exactly his son sees when he looks at him.

“A pretty drawing,” a voice says and the Inspector flinches until he looks up and sees Sergiu smiling at him. There is no mockery in his words as he observes the picture the Inspector is holding.

“From your child?” he asks.

“Son,” the Inspector says. “He had his birthday yesterday. Drew it with his present.”

“He must admire his father,” Sergiu says and the Inspector doesn’t answer. He shouldn’t, he thinks. His son should not admire the person his father is.

“You should hang it on the wall,” Sergiu says, seemingly not having noticed his lack of response. “We all need some keepsake to remind us of why we are doing this, right?” His voice turns wistful at the end and the Inspector wonders what he is thinking about. Who he is thinking about.

“I might,” he says instead of asking. “Have a good day, officer.” Another smile and then Sergiu leaves him to his work.

The day passes in a blur. They all do, if he is being honest with himself. Papers and stamps, names and faces he forgets the moment they leave his inspection booth, either to the right or the left.

“Please, I need to work here, my family is starving,” somebody begs. So will mine if I let you in without proper documents, thinks the Inspector. Red and the order to come back with a non-expired work permit next time. They plead and beg, threaten and bribe. Talk about friends and family, of the world across the border, of what will happen to them if they aren’t let inside. The Inspector listens without a change in expression and then marks their passports as red all the same. His world, his life, his family is here. And if he fails he won’t have either anymore.

Halfway through the day he turns his son’s drawing around, the scrawled “hero” an accusation he can’t face anymore. Evening comes, the bars in front of his window go down and the people still in line grumble in dismay but leave after some friendly encouragement by the guards. As friendly as you can get in Arstotzka. He walks back towards the city, body and mind tired, and dreams of food and vodka.

“Inspector,” a voice stops him and when he turns around Sergiu stands behind him. “Some of the guards are going for a drink, would you like to join?”

The Inspector hesitates. For a moment he is tempted. The vodka at the bar is cheap and awful but it will warm him up. And Sergiu so far has been rather friendly. You didn’t find much friendliness around here.

But then he thinks of tomorrow, of another day filled with rejections, tears and insults, and a deep exhaustion overcomes him as he shakes his head.

“Another time then,” Sergiu just says. “I understand, if I had family here, I’d also want to spend time with them.”

“You are alone here?” the Inspector asks. He talks little with the other guards but sometime he overhears some of their conversations, praise or curses about meals cooked by wives and reluctant fondness for demands by daughters and sons. Part of him had just assumed Sergiu was in a similar position.

“No, there was only my mother left when I left Nirsk for the war,” Sergiu said. “She died before I could see her again.” Age or illness or famine caused by the war, the Inspector dares not ask.

Sergiu’s story is common, even in a village as small as their hometown had been. He wonders suddenly if he had known Sergiu’s mother. Had he seen her on the street once upon a time, paying no attention to her, too occupied with his own problems. Until she had just stopped being there one day, another person just gone, with him not noticing the same way he hadn’t noticed her before. Just a name on a piece of paper now, for some person like him to put into a file.

“I am sorry,” the Inspector says and for what exactly, he isn’t even sure. Sergiu shrugs, eyes turning distant for a moment. “I left many things behind in Nirsk when I joined the war,” he said. “I still have my memories at least.”

Memories won’t cook you dinner or hug you though, the Inspector thinks. He is smart enough though to not say it out loud.

“I’ll see you tomorrow then,” Sergiu says and the Inspector nods as they part ways, Sergiu taking a right turn towards the bar and he a left towards the apartment building where his family is waiting for him. Does Sergiu live in a shared flat, the Inspector wonders. Or had he gotten lucky enough, or had managed to bribe the right people, to be assigned a small single flat. It must feel lonely, the Inspector thinks, when he sits with his family for dinner. Having come back from the war where he had slept among many other men in small spaces, if he was alone now, the silence at night must be deafening.

The next day when he goes to work, he stops at the guard post. Sergiu stands straight at always but from up close the Inspector can see his bloodshot eyes as he blinks at him tiredly.

“A good night?” the Inspector asks. A tired grin.

“A long one at the very least. I don’t know what they put in the vodka in that bar.” It’s likely bootleg, no bar running solely on state supplies would be able to supply a town of thirsty soldiers. The people in charge tented to turn a blind eye, aware that taking away the booze supply of people with access to firearms wasn’t the smartest idea.

Sergiu stretches and lets out a loud yawn. “Anyway, time to pretend my night has been more restful,” he says.

“Yes,” the Inspector says. “Time for us to pretend we work so they can pretend to pay us.”

It startles a laugh out of Sergiu. “To a successful day of pretended work followed by less pretended vodka then,” he says, eyes sparkling.

The Inspector feels himself smiling back briefly before he leaves Sergiu to his own duties.

There are new rules waiting for him when he sits down at his desk. Political asylum. The news have talked about it, and he wonders vaguely who would come and search for freedom in Arstotzka. It’s not on him to judge though.

Well technically it is, he guesses, but expiration dates and correctly typed names are matters of less political and moral implications or at least he can pretend they are.

Somebody offers him a watch in lieu of papers today and he quietly pushes it back, reaches for the red stamp. Tries to think of nothing but the endless repeating sound of rustling papers and the monotone bang of his stamp. He almost doesn’t notice the commotion suddenly coming from the guard post, the sound of a motor roaring until he hears alarmed screaming and the alarm starts blaring. And then it has almost become reflex and he works as if on autopilot.

Key, drawer, gun.

Aim. Shoot.

The figure falls from the motorcycle, something dropping out of his hands and suddenly there is an explosion. Far enough away from the guards, far enough away from anything but the motorcycle to be caught in the explosion of the grenade, cause it had to be a grenade, right, or something equally explosive.

The Inspector stares at the smoldering remains of the motorcycle and for a bizarre moments mourns the loss of it. Than the situation fully registers and with big steps he makes his way to the guard post, stepping around a burning wheel on his way.

“Are you okay?” he asks the first guard he sees, who looks slightly pale but tries to force his expression into something resembling composure.

“Yes, yes,” he says. “Good shot, Inspector.” The Inspector just nods, not really wanting to hear his thanks. His eyes wander over the other guards, mentally counting them.

Nobody hurt, as far as he can tell. Sergiu stands a bit to the side, listening to a commanding officer yelling orders. Their eyes meet and Sergiu nods at him briefly before turning his attention back to his superior.

There is a flash of relief, surprising and strange, and the Inspector forces himself to look away. There are questions during the next hours, the checkpoint remaining closed. He retells the event several times to various employees of the Ministry of Information, all with the same uniform and same lack of emotion on their face. He receives an extra cash payment for his quick thinking and marksman skills and then, at last, he is free to go.

His head had started hurting some time ago and he longs for a hot bath and the smile of his wife. He is met with a panicked expression on his wife’s face though when he opens the door to their flat. “Olga,” she just says and his stomach flips.

Calls are being made, questions asked and not answered and he wants to scream at somebody but he knows it won’t help his sister. They don’t tell him why and he doesn’t ask because it does not matter, not in Arstotzka.

“Sofia,” he asks instead, trying to stay patient and calm. “What about Sofia?”

If he can’t help his sister, he at least needs to help his niece. Silence on the other side of the phone line and then a sum of money being named. He hasn’t expected anything else but his stomach twists when he hears the number. It’s much. Too much. He doesn’t have the money.

“I’ll be there in an hour,” he still says and hangs up. He stares at the wall in front of him unblinking for a moment and thinks of Olga. She loved collecting flowers when they were children, back in Nirsk. Made him flower crowns which he had worn with the indulgent patience of a big brother. There hadn’t been any flower crowns in many years. There likely would never be any again.

But Sofia, he could save her at least. “I’ll be back,” he tells his wife and then he is out of the flat. He doesn’t even really notice where he is going until the checkpoint appears in front of him. His heart is beating fast and he realizes that his hand is clenched into a fist, so tight his fingernails are boring into his palm.

When he sees Sergiu leaving the guard post, he suddenly realizes why he is here.

“Sergiu,” he calls out, quickly making his way over to the man who looks up in surprise. The Inspector opens his mouth, ready to explain, to beg and bargain like the people he denies every day at the checkpoint.

Do they all feel like this, he wonders. Like they are floating, slowly drifting away and desperately trying to hold on to something, as he methodically and without thought cuts off their last lifeline.

“I need money,” he blurts out. “Please,” he adds and his voice sounds desperate and tense.

Sergiu just looks at him and he is going to say no, the Inspector thinks. He has known this man for three days and now he is standing here, begging him for his help without even having given a reason.

He hopes his sister will be able to forgive him if they should ever see each other again.

“Come with me,” Sergiu then suddenly says though and he starks walking. Startled the Inspector stares after him before he is able to give his body the order to follow. They silently walk down a few streets until they come to a stop in front of a shabby apartment building, as gray as the rest of the city.

“Wait here, I’ll be back in a moment,” Sergiu says and then he opens the door to the building. The Inspector stares after him as the door falls close behind him.

The minutes stretch into an eternity and he realizes that he hasn’t put on his coat when he had left his flat. He doesn’t even feel the cold though. Is Olga cold wherever she is right now, he wonders. He hopes that at least Sofia is warm.

Then the door opens again and the Inspector feels himself tense when Sergiu appears.

“Here,” Sergiu says, trusting an envelope towards him.

“I do not have more,” Sergiu says and he sounds apologetic as he hands it over. When the Inspector looks inside the envelope, he sees money. He counts almost automatically, his hands shaking slightly. It’s enough. Barely but with his own savings, it’s enough.

“Thank you,” he breathes out and the tension, the fear for his niece, seeps out of him for a brief moment.

“My niece, she is… I need to…” he begins because Sergiu deserves an explanation. But Sergiu just shakes his head.

“I trust you,” he says simply. “If you say you need this money, then you need it.”

The Inspector opens his mouth but no words come out. He has met few people in his life, he’d call good men. Even fewer he’d call friends.

This man who had just handed him what seemed to be his life savings deserved to be called both.

“I’ll pay you back, my friend,” he says. “I promise.”

Sergiu just nods again.

“I’ll see you tomorrow at the checkpoint,” he says and the Inspector nods before turning around and quickly starting to walk, the envelope with the money held so tightly in his hand he is crumpling it up.

The rest of the evening is spent waiting and then pushing over the envelope with Sergiu’s money after a significant pause. After that he is allowed to leave with Sofia. She runs towards him when she sees him and he gets on his knees and hugs her.

I’ll keep her save, Olga, he thinks to himself as he embraces his niece tightly. I promise. He holds her hand as they slowly walk back to the flat.

His wife and mother-in-law thankfully immediately take over once they arrive, distracting Sofia with hot tea and hugs. His uncle pulls out his card set and does one of his magic tricks and his niece laughs in delight, at least for a brief moment distracted from the events of the day. The Inspector allows himself to sink into his bed and sleep.

He dreams of flowers and his sister smiling and when he wakes his cheeks feel wet. He tries not to think about it on his way to work.

Sergiu is already at the guard post, smiling at him as the Inspector greets him. “I do hope this day will be calmer,” he says. “There is more action here than in the war.”

“Were did you fight?” the Inspector asks, suddenly curious.

“Northern parts of Kolechia. It’s hell.” Sergiu’s smile twists into something ugly and bitter and his eyes turn distant all of a sudden.

“I too would try to run from there,” he says and the Inspector gets the feeling whatever he is seeing, it’s not the checkpoint, not him.

“Come and eat with my family tonight,” he says impulsively, surprising himself with the words. But after they are out, he realizes that he means them. “It won’t be much,” he quickly adds because it’s never much. “But my wife, she is a good cook and my mother-in-law and uncle, they like having guests.”

He feels like he is rambling. But Sergiu blinks at him, seemingly having returned from wherever he had gone to.

“I’d like that,” he says. “It gets a bit lonely, eating alone every day.”

“Tonight after work then. Be prepared though, my family is quite big,” the Inspector says. Bigger now even, thanks to Sergiu.

Sergiu’s smile widens. “I’ll be happy to meet them,” he says and then somebody yells at him to get back to work. With a nod, Sergiu walks back to his post and the Inspector towards the inspection booth.

The day passes peacefully, or at least peacefully enough. Nobody tries to bomb or shoot them, a few people try to bribe him which he ignores, all while desperately trying not to think about how there is one more hungry mouth back at home.

At the end of the day, Sergiu and him walk back to his flat, talking about some old shared acquaintances from Nirsk.

“This is Sergiu”, he says once they have reached the flat and his wife has opened the door. “He works at the checkpoint. I have invited him for dinner.”

His wife looks a bit puzzled. He has never brought people from work back home before. But she is smart and her eyes wander between Sergiu towards Sofia, who is sitting at the table, drawing with their son.

Understanding settles on her face for a brief moment and the Inspector knows why he has married her. “Sit, sit,” she then says, pushing Sergiu towards the table. “I will make some tea. Mother, can you make extra potatoes?”

His son looks up and immediately decides that Sergiu should be newest person to admire his artistic skills and pushes his drawing towards him. His uncle then also joins the fray, as pompous and jovial as usual. It’s loud and messy and the Inspector thinks that he has made a mistake.

Sergiu likely would have preferred being at the bar right now, drinking and laughing with fellow men his age. Not being here in this small kitchen, smelling of current and past dinners, being forced to judge children’s drawings as his mother-in-law keeps adding sugar to his tea.

But then Sergiu smiles, looking happy and at ease in the chaos of his family and the Inspector thinks that this maybe wasn’t a mistake at all. In between his family, clamoring for his attention and asking him endless questions, the distant edge in his eyes has completely vanished. He hasn’t asked but the Inspector hopes all of a sudden that there is somebody out there for Sergiu, somebody who can give this to him.

Dinner is served, copious amount of potatoes and even some meat. He throws his wife a surprised look, wondering how she afforded it. She pushes an envelope in his hand after dinner, when he gets up to get glasses and the bottle of vodka. “Olga’s savings,” she says. “I went with Sofia and got her things from the flat before they clean it out.” 

He looks inside and hates himself for the feeling of dizzy relief when he sees the amount of money in it. He’d trade it in a heartbeat if he could have his sister back. But he can’t and at least it will be enough to pay back Sergiu.

His uncle gets his pack of cards out, for once to play instead to show magic tricks. His wife puts the children to bed and then sits with them at the table, laughing as her mother’s jokes become raunchier and raunchier with every glass of vodka until Sergiu’s ears are as red as his boozed cheeks.

The Inspector shows mercy then, to either Sergiu or his family or himself, he isn’t quite sure. “There is work tomorrow”, he says when his mother-in-law attempts to fill up Sergiu’s glass for the fifth time. “Bring him back soon then,” his wife says. She has never met a tall and slightly-too-thin man she didn’t want to feed. It’s how they had fallen in love.

He brings Sergiu down the stairs, partly to get some fresh air, partly because he might have miscounted how often his mother-in-law had topped up Sergiu’s glass, judging by the way he had swayed when he stood up from the table. A firm hand to push Sergiu at the direction of his own apartment seemed wise, the Inspector decides.

“Here,” he says down at the stairs. “The money I owe you.” Sergiu blinks, a bit wobbly on his feet but he takes the money and puts it into his coat pocket, hopefully to not be forgotten there. He doesn’t count it, the Inspector thinks.

“Thank you,” Sergiu says and the Inspector can’t help but laugh at this. “I have to thank you. Sofia would not be here without your help.”

“She is a sweet child,” Sergiu says. “I hope one day to also have a daughter.” His eyes turn distant again and the Inspector is sure now, that it’s not just the memories of the war he is seeing. He hopes the future Sergiu is envisioning is better than his past.

“I … I wanted to thank you,” Sergiu then says. “It was just dinner,” the Inspector says and anyway, he probably has to thank Sergiu too for entertaining his family.

“No, not this. Well, not just. But you saved my life several times. It’s good to have a friend here. I have few of those left.” A slightly bitter smile at this and the Inspector doesn’t ask. Not everybody came back from the war. 

“You’re a good man,” Sergiu then suddenly says, looking at him, expression so earnest and honest, the Inspector suddenly wants to laugh again.

He is many things. A good inspector, a good shot, maybe even a good provider, if he can pretend that a family needs nothing more than food and heat. Arstotzka might pin a medal on him one day and call him a good worker, a hero of the country, and it might even be true. But there is red, red in his life and dreams, and a good man doesn’t look at a crying wife, begging to be let in to join her husband, and thinks only of his family as a red stamp comes down.

“I am not,” he says and he can’t quite keep the bitterness out of his voice as he turns back to the stairs leading up to his flat. Sergiu grabs his arm, stopping him.

“In the war,” he says. “I’ve meet many people. Some good, some bad, many just wanting to survive. I remember those who checked if I had survived a battle, who tried to shot first so I wouldn’t die, who talked to me afterwards. Them I remember most of all.” His hand squeezes the Inspector’s shoulder and he doesn’t know about the red in his life.

“It made them good men to me. You are one of them.” But he believes the Inspector is good. And maybe if Sergiu believes it, maybe he can at least try to be.

“You’re a good friend,” the Inspector says unable to put all of his thoughts in adequate words. From the way Sergiu smiles, it still seemed to have been understood.

“I will see you tomorrow,” Sergiu says and then he starts walking, thankfully into the right direction. The Inspector looks after him as he slowly disappears into the night and in this moment, he promises to himself that he would prove Sergiu’s belief right. That he could be a good man.

Days later, he would think of it as a woman stands in front of him, anxious and without the necessary papers. He would think of a locket and a promise and then he would reach for the stamp. And for once, his dreams this night would be filled with green. 


End file.
